[Philly Anticap note: This post only contains the sections of Unicorn Riot’s article about Philadelphia. To read the entire post visit the link above.]
While [American Identity Movement] exact plans have not yet been announced, recent actions by the American Identity Movement’s core members provide a likely template. In May 2019, a few members of AmIM targeted crowds at a baseball game in Philadelphia, and brought a vinyl banner celebrating Kate Smith, a former singer of the National Anthem at the Philly stadium whose statue was recently removed due to her history of making racist comments. The small group of white supremacist activists brought the banner into the crowd arriving for the game, and managed to entice several unsuspecting passerby into posing with them in footage later released in a propaganda video.
A message in the American Identity Movement’s private online chat for members, posted by ‘Konrad-MD,’ requested donations to recoup costs paid out of pocket to pull off the small media stunt.
Kurtis Buckingham aka ‘Konrad’ solicits donations for racist activism in the American Identity Movement’s MatterMost chat server.
Unicorn Riot has identified ‘Konrad’ as Kurtis Bailey Buckingham, an active member of AmIM’s Maryland chapter who appears at most of the group’s national actions. Buckingham is one of the newer hardcore members of the group, with leaked Discord logs showing that he joined Identity Evropa in August 2018.
Kurtis Buckingham aka ‘Konrad-MD’ at the white nationalist American Renaissance conference in May 2019.
September 7th, 2019 11 am sharp (Yoga warm-up at 10:30)
FDR Park
Philadelphia Anarchist Black Cross presents our second annual Running Down The Walls (RDTW)! This year’s event is dedicated to Never Give Up! – a project to free the remaining incarcerated members of the MOVE 9, and sustain their long-term post-release support. Following the release of his parents, Mike Africa Jr. founded Never Give Up to alleviate the financial strain of rebuilding life after decades of imprisonment. When his uncle Chuck Africa beat colon cancer, the project actively aligned with the broader, ongoing fight against cancer.
The Move organization has never given up. Not after their house was flooded, gassed, and riddled with bullets. Not after the police deployed explosives and let them burn alive. Not after the PADOC murdered Phil and Merle Africa.
After 40 years in prison and never giving up on their beliefs or each other, Debbie was released on parole on June 16th 2018, soon after followed by Mike Africa Sr. on October 23rd. Janet and Janine were released on May 25th, 2019 and then Eddie on June 21st. Chuck comes up for parole this November, and Delbert currently awaits the outcome of an appeal to secure his next hearing date.
As we are among their supporters, we too never give up! Philadelphia RDTW 2019 is dedicated to amplifying their voices, lifting them up in their struggles, and maintaining material post-release support. Join us for another revolutionary 5K run/walk/bike/skate and day of solidarity. If you would like to participate in light yoga and warm-up stretches before, please arrive around 10:15am. Bring a mat if you can! If you cannot make it to the event or would like to make an additional contribution, please sponsor a participant either outside prison or inside or one of each. Contact us for more information on sponsoring!
Proceeds will be split between the Warchest Program and the Never Give Up project. The ABCF Warchest program sends monthly stipends to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War who have insufficient, little, or no financial support during their imprisonment.
Register for the 5K
Thanks for your support by running/walking/biking/skating the 5K! Everyone must fill out the following form to register NO LATER THAN AUGUST 24TH so that you receive your official shirt the day of the event. The registration fee of $40 confirms your place at the event and it is preferred that this be paid before the day of the event by using the Seeds of Wisdom Patreon link below. Cash can also be accepted at the event. Additional funds over the $40 base fee raised through sponsorships are more than welcome (see our fundraising tips below).
Philadelphia Proud Boys- 1. John Lombardo, 2. Joseph Ruff, 4. Tom Moermann, 5. Nicholas J. Magner, 9. Sonny Sullivan, 10. Donovan Chiarlanza, 11. Zachary Rehl, 13. Stephen Hartley, 14. John David WilliamsMore Scum- 2. Tyler Yamaguchi, 5. Jason Wiltsley, 6. Sean Curran, 7. John David Williams, 8. Mark Anthony Tucci, 9. Stephen Hartley, 10. Nicholas J. Magner
Philadelphia’s chapter of the Proud Boys has existed since mid-2017, though they have for the most part tried to remain out of the public eye and off the radar. Their attempts to hide however, have been decidedly ineffective.
So what is the point of exposing a group with no real public presence or visible effect on the world? The real question one should be asking is why wait until this group has caused harm to act? The Proud Boys on a national level have very clear intentions and are responsible for a rash of violent incidents across the country, like gang beatings in New York, and Portland. They are founded on carefully coded white supremacist and misogynist rhetoric, bigotry that makes them rotten to the core and often flares up among individual members despite PR efforts by the group as a whole to simply appear as conservatives. By willingly accepting the name and associations of the Proud Boys, this Philadelphia chapter has made their intentions clear. They have seen what the group has done across the country and decided that they too wish to be a part of that. They have made their clear and conscious decision, a decision that makes their state of mind and eventual goals apparent, and they should be responded to accordingly. Why wait until they’ve committed violence?
The first mentions of this chapter were in the spring of 2017, when prospective members began to organize on reddit. Among the initial organizers were president Stephen Hartley and vice president Tom Moerman, who began mentioning their membership on social media around this time. The group steadily gained numbers behind the scenes throughout 2017 and into 2018. Almost all of their activity up to this point was social in nature, consisting mostly of drinking outings and outdoors activities like rafting or boating. During this time, members like John Williams and Stephen Hartley cavorted with prolific national personalities in the far right like Gavin McInnes, Milo Yiannopoulous, and Sal Cipolla, attending national Proud Boy events like parties in New York, or their music festival, West Fest.
Some of the Philadelphia Proud Boys on a rafting trip with other chapters
They began to intersect with other portions of the Philadelphia Far Right, namely the group Sports, Beer, & Politics (On facebook, Sports, Beer & Politics II), led by Zach Rehl and Sonny Sullivan. Sports, Beer, and Politics and their connections to other Far Right groups has been outlined before http://archive.is/8CIpg. Zach and Sonny first began to appear as known members of the main chapter of the Philadelphia Proud Boys in the Summer of 2018, though how long they had interacted before this is unknown. It should be noted that another group, the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, was active in Philadelphia and is considered an offshoot of the Proud Boys. Members of this group organized closely with Sports, Beer, and Politics in 2017 and provided the personal security detail of Neo Nazi Augustus Invictus in Charlottesville. The Alt-Knights have not been very active in quite some time and their associations with the main group that refers to itself as the “Philadelphia Proud Boys” is unknown.
For the Philadelphia Proud Boys, their public debut was at the “We the People Rally” in Philadelphia, on November 17th, 2018. Zach Rehl, one of the members, was one of the main organizers of this event and welcomed Proud Boys both local and national, with open arms. While Proud Boys initially openly pledged allegiance to this event, they quickly backpedaled after the negative press that came out after a weekend of violent incidents and arrests in New York and Portland. They were instructed not to show up in their distinct uniform of Black and Gold Fred Perrys, and not to appear in any organizational capacity, but just as “patriots”. The still referred to themselves as Proud Boys in the security organizing chat leading up to the event though. Such duplicitous behavior is a trademark of organizer Zach Rehl. Indeed many of them showed up to the rally on the 17th, thinking they could disguise themselves in Plain Clothes. Several of them are seen together at a cigar bar after the rally, some of them apparently having changed into their Proud Boy uniforms. After a concerted doxing campaign on twitter, many of them panicked and went quiet and it seems the ranks were shuffled a bit. Zach Rehl would attempt to organize several fascist rallies in the Northeast, with a rogues gallery of boomer militias, meathead goons like Alan Swinney, and hardcore fascists like American Guard. All of these events fell through due to a mix of infighting and extreme incompetence on the part of everyone involved. Nonetheless, small crews of Philly Proud Boys would show up to various events in Philly later in the spring, with a contingent of them showing up to harass protesters outside a speech by Candace Owens at UPenn, and another group of them showing up to an anti-abortion rally. Most recently, Thomas Savasta seems to be rising through the ranks, even attending a national event where the Proud Boys declared a defamation lawsuit against the SPLC. Their most recent appearance was at Philadelphia pride- ostensibly for the purpose of participating with their gay members and appearing nice and liberal and tolerant. Of course, this is all a trick of optic’s sake- don’t be fooled. They are still working with the same base material of a group founded in bigotry, no matter how much they try to deny it. A polished turd is still a turd.
This attempt to manifest publicly was alarming and set in motion a concerted effort to root out and expose the members of this group, as a counter to their attempts to remain out of the spotlight. They will be dragged into it. Knowing who is organizing this group and who is involved in it allows us to defend our communities from any violence they may commit or invite in the future.
In general, their ranks seem to be drawn from men in their late 20s-early 40s, with most of these ‘boys’ being in their mid 30’s (Imagine calling yourself a ‘Proud Boy’ at that age… absolutely pitiful). Almost all have an inclination towards right-libertarian politics. This chapter appears to be much more optics conscious than other chapters, trying to maintain a sanitized image free of overt bigotry. This is done to the point of even being regarded as “liberal” by other members of the far right across the country. Indeed they only let their bigoted views loose in settings they believe are private or unwatched, or under different names. They love to play the game of plausible deniability, watching their tongues carefully to try and prove they aren’t racist. It must be remembered that joining into an organization with White supremacist roots, that is heavily laden with hardcore white supremacists, bolsters their actions and violence, and makes you complicit.
One strain of bigotry that seems to run consistently through the group and on the surface is Islamophobia- considering the massive spike in Islamophobic violence since Trump got elected, it is reasonable to assume that this group is a danger to Muslims in Philadelphia. Many of them seem to be drawn from the Pop Punk/Metalcore/Easycore/Metal fandoms and people who actively participate in those are warned to keep an eye out for them.
Please note that addresses given are, as a result of the data collecting method used, not confirmed as entirely true unless there is some form of on the ground evidence that that person resides there.
So who are the known members of the Philadelphia Proud Boys? Some of the key figures have provided a glut of information on their lives and activities, while others are more halfhearted about their dedication to the group and their public image, so of course there is a lot more information on some rather than others.
On Wednesday, June 12, Delaware announced it was dropping its last two cases against former Vaughn prisoners accused of participation in the 2017 prison takeover. Lawrence Michaels and Alejandro Rodriguez-Ortiz, whom the state claimed helped subdue correctional officers at the beginning of the takeover, will no longer be facing trial in the fall. The state also announced that it would not be retrying defendant Obadiah Miller, for whom the jury in a previous trial could not come to a decision about whether he had fought and stabbed the officer who later succumbed to his injuries. The other defendant against whom the jury had returned no decision charges on the assaults, John Bramble, had his remaining charges dropped in March. The charges cannot be brought back up.
The announcement is a major victory for all 16 remaining defendants, who chose to stick together and take their cases to trial in spite of extreme retaliatory abuse by the prisons, as well as the betrayal by one of the 18 indicted prisoners (Royal “Diamond” Downs), who was secretly working with the prosecution. Following the first trial, defendant Kelly Gibbs took a non-cooperating plea deal and later took his own life.
The defendants have worked non-stop since their indictment in fall 2017 to expose the lies on which the state has built its case, as well as the systemic abuse they’ve experienced leading up to the takeover and in retaliation. Two of the defendants who are serving life sentences, Jarreau Ayers (“Ruk”) and Dwayne Staats, sacrificed what chance they might have left of getting out of prison by testifying on behalf of the other defendants and taking responsibility for planning and carrying out aspects of the uprising.
Delaware’s announcement followed two trials in a row in which the state failed to obtain any convictions. The most recently exonerated defendant, Roman Shankaras, was released after his not guilty verdict on May 23. This past week, Rome gave damning interviews to the press that completely destroyed whatever credibility the state might have had left. The state’s decision also followed the release last week of a scathing letter written by Jarreau Ayers to mainstream press, which described the fallacies of the state’s case and the corporate media’s unapologetically biased coverage.
But retaliation continues against the defendants who are still on the other side of the fence. Despite having almost all been found not guilty or had their charges dropped, the state is continuing to punish ten of the defendants (Jarreau Ayers, Abednego Baynes, Kevin Berry, John Bramble, Deric Forney, Janiis Mathis, Obadiah Miller, Jonathan Rodriguez, Corey Smith, Dwayne Staats) who are now in Pennsylvania, where they are being held on lockdown indefinitely (via placement on PA’s Restricted Release List) on vague and questionable grounds. More than two years later, these prisoners are still being abused for staying in solidarity with one another against the state.
Shoutout to all the defendants and to all rebels inside and outside the prison walls! The struggle for liberation continues!
from Instagram Saw this rally of anarchist prisoner shout-outs yesterday, #june11, prefaced by “FREE THE ANARCHIST PRISONERS!”[not pictured: #billdunne]
For June 11th anarchist solidarity in Philly took a few different forms. In the lead up to the 11th stickers and posters were put up. Graffiti for anarchist prisoners was written on the Grays Ferry Bridge.
On June 11th a BBQ fundraiser was held. Vegan food and copies of Fireant were given away and money was collected for anarchist prisoners and local anti-repression efforts.
Peace and solidarity to all the men and women that’s behind enemy lines, who continue to resist and rebel against this oppressive system we face everyday.
Also peace and solidarity to all the organizations who support us and fight for us non-stop. A special shout out to Philly, Pittsburgh and Chicago Anarchist Black Cross (ABC), D.C Crew, R.A.M NYC, Ghost Town Prisoner Support and two friends of mine T and N, without all of y’all the Vaughn17 supporters, none of the not guilty verdicts and the charges dismissed for the remaining comrades wouldn’t be possible. So thanks to y’all for being there for us, the non-stop work y’all put in and the non-stop pressure y’all put on DE DOC, PA DOC and the judicial system to make sure were always good. As y’all know the fight continues, we still have three comrades* that have to face a corrupt judicial system. So to all that read this support these brothers and go to their trials the more supports they have the better, so support the #Vaughn17.
Now to my June 11th statement. As I sit here in my cell and write this I really don’t know what to write right now. As I told friends of mine I don’t consider myself to be a anarchist. I wouldn’t put a label on what I do and stand for as a man. I’m just write how I feel and what’s on my mind and hopefully other brothers and sisters behind enemy lines feel the same way. I hate all authority figures (police, C.O’s, judge etc.) with a passion. Some may ask why? My answer to that is why not! These so called authority figures don’t do anything but oppress people mainly people of color, trans men and women, and homeless people, so that’s why I hate them. I want to touch on something else I am passionate about. The abolishment of all theses concentration camps (prisons). I am with the abolishment of theses concentration camps “By any means necessary” as Malcolm X once famously put it. ^^ But to do away with theses concentration camps it must first start with us, the men and women who are on these camps, who endure every form of oppression daily, may it be verbally, mentally, physically or sexually, we face it everyday by our oppressor! To see the abolishment of these camps we must resist and rebel against our oppressor. We speak of resistance all the time but know that “words with no actions is just talk”. It starts with us, and it’s time we stand for something or continue to fall for anything.
Fred Hampton
“Dare to struggle”
You dare to win
Peace to all #Vaughn17 Kev
*At the time of publishing only two of the #Vaughn17 still face charges, Obediah Miller has recently had his case quietly dismissed! For information about the 17 and up to date addresses (including Kevin’s) visit vaughn17support.org
Smart communications/PA DOC Kevin Berry #NT0583 SCI Benner Township PO Box 33028 St Petersburg, FL 33733
When sending to Kevin keep in mind that since he has been transferred to Pennsylvania mail for him is sent to a processing facility in Florida where it is scanned electronically then emailed to the prison where it is printed.
Chicago Antifa identified Matthew Missimer, of Downingtown, Pennsylvania, as far-Right Twitter troll @Mathaeus-M. He frequently retweeted neo-Nazi and white nationalist accounts, including former Traditionalist Worker Party co-founder Matthew Parrott, white nationalist website VDARE, and Identity Evropa, and made frequent misogynistic and transphobic statements. After being publicly identified, Missimer promptly deleted his Twitter account.
“We are the account killers,” quipped Chicago Antifa. “3rd one this week.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Missimer is an Invoice Processor at Aerotek, a staffing services company in Downington, Pennsylvania. You can let them know about their employee by tweeting @Aerotek.
[Philly Anticap note: We have only included a locally relevant fragment of the original post. To read the whole post follow the link at the top of the post.]
Rome is the eighth defendant to be tried in this case, and the fifth to have now been cleared on all charges. Having been scheduled for release last year, he has now been released and is at home with his family.
Two more defendants, Lawrence Michaels (“Smoke”) and Alejandro Rodriguez-Ortiz (“Capo”) are still scheduled to be tried in October. One defendant from the second trial, Obadiah Miller (“OB”) is still waiting for the state to decide whether it will retry him. The other defendant in the second trial for whom the jury returned “no decision” verdicts for two charges, John Bramble (“Johnny”), had his remaining charges dropped for good in March.
After their failure to convict any defendants in the second trial, the state dropped their case against the other six defendants in March.
Curious to write to prisoners, but not sure how to start or who to write to?
Join us for our monthly letter-writing event this month for an intro on how to get started and open discussion on political prisoners who might be seeking more mail or penpals. We will also be distributing our newly-printed Philly ABC guide to supporting political prisoners as a take-home reference, and sending birthday cards to political prisoners with birthdays in June: Matt DeHart (the 10th), Jay Chase (the 11th), and Tom Manning (the 27th).
We encourage folks who know of prisoners seeking more correspondence to come and spread the word to folks looking to write to people for the first time.
When: Monday, May 27th; 6:30-8:30pm Where: A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Avenue
Check out RED’s latest zines: https://radicaleducationdepartment.com/zines/ “RED: Breaking Ground” includes our manifesto, an account of our emergence and objectives, a conversation with our comrades at Cutting Class, and an assessment of our first year of work.
